And also the human race is almost wiped out on a seemingly daily basis just to be saved in the nick of time by the doctor. Not exactly comforting.

I recall en episode where they played out the events of everything had the doctor not existed/died, and it was just a horror show.

I go to star trek for hope, and 40k for a very fucked up form of “hope” that involves a lot of masochism.

I can recommend against enders. I have two friends with them, and one myself. Between the 3 of us none of them are currently working, and its been like this since i found out all 3 of us had 3d printers. Keeping them working is like pulling teeth.

Friendly reminder to all:

The prime directive is a great example of how even a good rule taken to the extreme can end up causing more harm than good.

But beyond that, it’s just an easy aid for the writers to add a point of conflict for their stories. The prime directive as a value within the federation seems secondary to me.

The republican/right wing party attempted to overthrow an election. And they are unabashed about that. And somehow they still have a 3rd of the country still supporting them.

Is that not enough for us to qualify as having a real fascism problem?

They wouldn’t be able to finish stealing that car before a thousand hungry lawyers ate them alive. Why do we let media companies do that?

They would probably actually have a decent shot at getting away with it, at least at first.

And to answer your question, it’s because the anger that companies generate by doing this shit ends up turning into piracy. Why would you try to punish a corp for doing this (likely wasting your time) when a cheap VPN and basic tech literacy gets you what you want?

The effort ratios are way out of wack when it comes to digital products. It’s easy to get around digital bullshitery, not so much in the real world where we are all car dependant.

Yeah, the NPVIC is… I mean, let’s be honest here. It’s not great. It’s better than our current system, absolutely.

Agreed.

But it’s far, far inferior than rank choice.

I’d say it goes like

Approval >>> Ranked >>>>>>>>>>>>> FPTP (popular vote) >>> FPTP (electoral college)

Agreed.

We would need election reform for that to change, and while we are getting closer to that state by state, I don’t think we will ever get enough states to sign on for the laws to kick in.

I assume you’re talking about the NPVIC. But yeah, we are getting marginally closer to reform each year. And public sentiment towards FPTP voting is changing, which is good. The only downside is that it is slow, and people seem more keen on rank choice instead of approval (IMO the best).

And these changes will never happen with our current system in place, so it’s a catch 22. Can’t change the system without reform, can’t reform with our current system.

Honestly that’s the case with most problems in the U.S., it’s just a bunch of catch 22s the whole way down, and the whole way up.

Yeah, congress needs to be stacked with representatives that actually give a shit about protecting workers and democracy. And that’s never going to happen with a 2 party system and legalize bribery (“lobbying”).

And those things won’t get fixed until people start giving a shit and voting accordingly, and/or we have massive protests.

I don’t think that’s a starter.

I wasn’t being literal. There are a million things that need fixed, a few of them you’ve listed and I 100% agree with. The one I named was just one of them.

IIRC about 2/3rds of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That is not an economy that is working for the people.

We need dramatic overhauls that Biden, and especially Trump will never deliver. We need employee ownership of companies for starters.

nobody should use chatgpt to generate long rambly paragraphs complaining about nothing in particular with no point or ending or punctuation coupled with maildrop.cc as a temporary email

Gay - Anon was constantly terrified of shooters, which means they were constantly thinking of other men

That, and a land tax

The current situation with trains is shit because we as a country have allowed it to deteriorate.

Waiting 3 hours for a freight train is one such example. The majority of rail lines are owned by freight companies, so they give their own trails priority over passenger trains. That shit is unacceptable.

If you’re trying to avoid micro plastics, as long as you use ceramics that don’t use acrylic, you should be good.

Don’t forget ceramics!

I could see that too. Either way, it’s a fun thought experiment to question how such an entity comes into being. Because surely the starting point looked a lot different given that they’ve assimilated (and therefore been changed by) thousands of species.

I’m finally watching star trek with my girlfriend and getting her into it. Been watching along with her on TNG. So far we are about done with season 1, but I am big excited to re-watch DS9 se5, especially with her watching it for the first time by my side.

Gonna have to brave the awful ass se1 Sisko haircut though lol.